morn

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English morn, also morwen, morgen and in the West Midlands marȝen,^[2][3] inherited from Old English morgen (“morning, forenoon, sunrise”), inflected morgne and morne, with the Mercian form margen, dative marne.^[2][3][4] The monosyllabic form comes, at least in part, from the contracted forms of the oblique cases.^[5] The Old English word goes back to Proto-Germanic *murganaz (“morning”),^[3][6] and is cognate with Old Saxon morgan, Old Frisian morgen, Middle Dutch morghen, Dutch morgen, Old High German morgan, German Morgen, Old Norse morgunn and morginn, and Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌲𐌹𐌽𐍃 (maurgins).^[3][4][7][8] The OED explains the Old English forms as reflexes of several Germanic base forms: morgen; a form with a suffix causing i-mutation, seen in myrgen- and the Gothic word; and margen, also mergen, with a different vowel grade.^[5][7] Its further origin is unclear: Barnhart calls it unknown,^[4] Etymonline derives it from Proto-Indo-European *merk-, perhaps from a root meaning "to blink, twinkle",^[3] and the OED compares Lithuanian merkti (“to blink, wink”) and mirgėti (“to twinkle”).^[5] The same Old English word is the source of morrow,^[9][10] and morning was formed in Middle English from morwen after the model of evening.^[11][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The beginning of the day, dawn: in Beowulf,^[5] which Barnhart dates to about 725, though the poem survives only in a late West Saxon copy of about 1000.^[4] The sense "the early part of the day, morning" is also Old English, in the Lindisfarne Gospels.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Old English morgen also meant the next morning, and so the following day, a use that survives in Scots as the morn, tomorrow.^[5][10][12] From late Middle English on the word was chiefly poetic,^[5] and Johnson (1755) wrote that it was used only by the poets, quoting Shakespeare's Hamlet.^[13] Etymonline says it was relegated to poetry by the late 19th century.^[3] The poetic sense "the east" is recorded from 1647 to 1896.^[5][10] In dialect the word stayed in everyday use: Wright recorded morn, the morning, and the morn, tomorrow, across Scotland, Ireland and northern England, and also in Suffolk, Essex and Kent, with forms such as marn, moarn and mooarn.^[14] Collins marks the sense "morning" as Australian as well as poetic.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – Old English morgen, dawn, morning, in Beowulf.^[5][4]
• c. 1175 – Middle English maregen.^[4]
• before 1225 – the morn, tomorrow.^[5]
• c. 1250 – the contracted form morn.^[4] Etymonline dates the contraction to the late 14th century.^[3]
• 1340 – the morn used as an adverb, tomorrow.^[5]
• 1647 – poetic, the east (obsolete after 1896).^[5]
• 1694 – Scottish and Irish the morn's morn, tomorrow morning.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (poetic, also Australian) The morning: They walked the hills from morn till dusk.^[12][15][10]
2. (poetic) The beginning of the day; dawn, sunrise.^[15][5][10]
3. (Scottish) the morn: tomorrow, or tomorrow morning, as in the morn's nicht, tomorrow night.^{[12][15][5][10]}
4. (obsolete, 1647–1896) The east.^[5][10]

Related words

• morning
• morrow
• tomorrow

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster